Yuxiang Huang

Hogan :: in October 27, 2015 :: in Stories :: Comments Off on Yuxiang Huang

Taking about the technological communication device, I usually use on an iPhone, a laptop, an iPad mini, an amazon fire, and Alienware Alpha on a daily basis. Most of these electrical devices were acquired in a normal way, I purchased these on Amazon.com. But the iPad mini is a gift from my college. And it also replaced my iPad3, because the iPad mini is easier to carry.

Firstly, I want to focus on my cellphone. When I went to college, I had just got my first cellphone. It was a Huawei’s Android smartphone, and I just used it for six month.

You can see it in the picture. It still can be used for calling or massaging, even playing some simply games. Because it cannot meet some requests for my normal life. I replaced it.

And in the first three years in my college life, I changed my cellphone every semester. So I have six cellphones in the first three years. And there are two reasons for this. One is that I was an incautious person. I dropped one cellphone in the lavatory, and I loss other one in a Chicago Airport. The other reason is that my father’s habit is changing his cellphone. So he would give me his older cellphones to me. That is why I changed my cellphone every semester. And I also think the new features and the improvement of the hardware is other reason to change cellphones. For example, I always used Android smartphones in the first three years, and these smartphones would be more and more lagging and crash because of updating Apps. So changing a smartphone is a way to solve this situation. About these no longer using cellphones, I just put these in my drawer. Because these still can be used for calling or messaging, if I lose my cellphone, I can reuse these before I buy a new cellphone.

And about other electrical device, I just updated it for just one case that it couldn’t work smoothly or it was broken. For example, before I got iPad mini, I had an iPad 1, iPad 2 and iPad 3. I just updated them when the older generation couldn’t meet the requirements of many Apps. And I just stored all these iPads in my drawer. But I guess it’s hard to reuse these. So I liked to store these no longer using devices in my drawer. And it’s my way to disposed of my devices. But sometimes I wanted to dispose these someplace where there could recycled. But it’s hard find an appropriate information. Because I would face some problems about the distance. The recycle place are not always located in my city, I need to spend money to ship my technological devices. But most of these still have functions. So I just keep all of these for my collection.

But after I saw a video[1] in my COM380 class, I changed my mind about how to dispose of my electrical device. People believe that the electrical device recycling company would recycle these device, but most of these company just sell this E-Waste to developing counties. It’s just a lie for us. The recycling companies are not responsible themselves. They hire women who are pregnant to deal with E-Waste. And the environment of a “recycling” place was polluted by E-Waste. Poor people just make a living by finding gold in E-Waste. After knowing about this, I think storing my older electrical devices in my drawer maybe is not a bad choice. Because these devices wouldn’t pollute the environment. But I just want the government to publish some law or measures to control these recycling companies.

With the development of technology, more and more electrical devices come out. But we should to rethink about how to deal with E-Waste. We need to protect our earth. So we need a method to recycle our electric devices. Maybe some people just throw their E-Waste in the garbage, but we can inform them through TV, newspaper or other way. For example, a paper posted near the garbage in my yard said, “Don’t throw electrical device in the garbage.” It is an effective way to forbid people from throwing E-Waste in the garbage. And I think if I shipped my no longer used devices to a recycle company, my devices would be sent to a developing country to pollute its environment. So I believe that keeping my old electrical device by myself is not bad way. And when I find a reliable method to recycle it, I will empty my drawer to recycle.

And another video also given me a chance to rethink about how to deal with the E-Waste problem.[2] It’s a TED lecture about recycling plastic by Mike Biddle. Using the tech way to figure out a tech question, which is best explanation for this lecture. He research about characters of all kinds of plastic, and knew how to figure out and recycle them. For E-Waste, maybe we can use the same way to deal with this problem. If we have the recycle technology which can match the every new generation of electrical devices. And the government should let people know where they can use this technology to recycle, which can better the situation of E-Waste.

After knowing much information about E-Waste, I also became more careful before I purchase a new electrical device. Because I would think about the impact on the environment. I will select environment-friendly devices. And I also will decrease the frequency for updating my devices, in order to help mitigate the E-Waste problem.

All in all, E-Waste is a big problem we face now. But we can break it down, just focus on ourselves. It will have important influence on this problem. We can reduce the frequency of updating our devices. Due to demand, companies will adjust their production. This is a way to reduce the problem at the source. Don’t throw E-Waste in the garbage, the incorrect way to dispose will pollute our environment. We must select the reliable way to recycle E-Waste. That is what I learned from my experience and what I learn from my COM380 course.

Just following these tips, and doing it for ourselves. Our earth will be more beautiful!